Nebraska Game Thread

[JayFan95]

Our NIL isn’t as competitive as it was. Missed on plenty of help because of money.

Without Ash, guess we’ll see Neal slide over to the 2 and Green/Miller at the 3.

Mac has his work cut out.

[Jaybird]

Lots of comments on shooting: lack of shots for Kalk, bad 3 point shooting, only 10 two point shots, etc

I see those ten two point shots (we made exactly five for the night) as ten missed opportunities. Instead of 42 triple tries, we could have had a perfect 52! We would have had an immaculate distance shooting sheet. We could have out-Grinnelled Grinnell. After a barrage of missiles like that, we could have trademarked Let it Fly. All the twos were taken by our pair of transfers. It's pretty clear Pop and Neal still have lot to learn about how we play nebraska.

Some factoids to chew on:

--when we took 40 threes against these guys two years ago, that was the most threes we launched in a game all year;

--when we fired up 40 threes against nebby last year, that was tied for most 3s we took in a game all year (for some reason, we also shot 40 against Texas Southern. Maybe we were just tuning up for nebraksa);

--when we shot 42 (forty frickin two!) triples Friday night, I feel confident in predicting that that will be the most threes we shoot this year too. I'm so confident of that because those 42 treys were the most Creighton has shot in a game...EVER! That was a record-setting Friday night.

---I looked at shooting over the last three games in this series. nebraska has attempted exactly one more field goal than we have in that time, 187 to 186. But we've shot SIX DOZEN more threes than they have! We shot 122 3s and 64 2s; they shot a normal 50 triples and 137 twos. Another way of looking at it is, 66% of our shots were from above the arc; 27% of theirs were. And, of course, they won two out of three;

---there are 364 teams in Division 1. In the most recent game each of them have played, 363 of those teams shot fewer than 42 threes. In other words, everybody but us. When it comes to shooting 42 triples in a game, nobody can touch us (or wants to). We stand alone. And none of those teams have Ryan Kalkbrenner to throw to in the post;

---and it seems worth mentioning that we're shooting just over 30% from distance. Last season we finished at nearly 37% from above the arc. The year before, almost 35%. Early returns indicate we just don't have the marksmen this year to rely on the 3 ball as our stock and trade. So what did we do Friday? We doubled down on treys. Screw the metrics. The second we cross the timeline, we're gunning it, damn it.

Some of our 42 must have been when we were in catch-up mode, but we're not the only team to find ourselves trailing late. Yet, this week anyway, we're the only team to heave 42 3s.

It looks to me like this is planned. This is our strategy. It can't be that their defense presents such unique challenges that 40+ 3 attempts is the only way we can hang with 'em. If that was the case, they'd hardly ever lose. They'd be 1960s UCLA. But St. Mary's cracked the code. They just beat 'em shooting 17 3s (and making five). Bethune-Cookman gave them more of a game than we did (lost by 5), and they did it shooting 26 triples, way fewer than us. And, it's worth repeating, those teams don't have Kalk.

Why do we leave common sense in the locker room when we play these guys? Why does the staff put in such a weird, bizarre, illogical gameplan, just for them, a team that, esp. this year, looks like the island of misfit toys, a bunch of guys who could barely crack the rotations of the schools they came from? Has Mac ever explained it? WTF are we doing?

[HaRdWoOd]

I wonder if they consider hiring LJ’s redshirt now. We are going to struggle mightily to create any dribble penetration.

What is the deal with Johnsons injury? Is he even practicing?

[NUgradCUfan]

It looks to me like this is planned. This is our strategy. It can't be that their defense presents such unique challenges that 40+ 3 attempts is the only way we can hang with 'em. If that was the case, they'd hardly ever lose. They'd be 1960s UCLA. But St. Mary's cracked the code. They just beat 'em shooting 17 3s (and making five). Bethune-Cookman gave them more of a game than we did (lost by 5), and they did it shooting 26 triples, way fewer than us. And, it's worth repeating, those teams don't have Kalk.

Why do we leave common sense in the locker room when we play these guys? Why does the staff put in such a weird, bizarre, illogical gameplan, just for them, a team that, esp. this year, looks like the island of misfit toys, a bunch of guys who could barely crack the rotations of the schools they came from? Has Mac ever explained it? WTF are we doing?

+1000000 I have no idea why the plan was that plan. All on Mac and staff. Dumb dumb dumb.

[bleedblue]

People need to clam down. This was 1 bad loss to a team that's built to give us problems. Everyone's acting like we wiffed so bad in the portal by not getting 2 guys as good as Trey and Baylor. There weren't 2 guys available in the portal that could replace them, baylor was a freaking All-American. It will take some time to gel but Macs whole strategy the last few years is to play our best ball in March. We have enough opportunities this season to lose some games and still make the tournament. The sky is not falling, Mac will get it figured out.

[SeattleJay]

People need to clam down. This was 1 bad loss to a team that's built to give us problems. Everyone's acting like we wiffed so bad in the portal by not getting 2 guys as good as Trey and Baylor. There weren't 2 guys available in the portal that could replace them, baylor was a freaking All-American. It will take some time to gel but Macs whole strategy the last few years is to play our best ball in March. We have enough opportunities this season to lose some games and still make the tournament. The sky is not falling, Mac will get it figured out.

Agree. But be forewarned, we could have a fair amount of turbulence without Ashworth for however many weeks that takes.

[NUgradCUfan]

People need to clam down. This was 1 bad loss to a team that's built to give us problems. Everyone's acting like we wiffed so bad in the portal by not getting 2 guys as good as Trey and Baylor. There weren't 2 guys available in the portal that could replace them, baylor was a freaking All-American. It will take some time to gel but Macs whole strategy the last few years is to play our best ball in March. We have enough opportunities this season to lose some games and still make the tournament. The sky is not falling, Mac will get it figured out.

Not discounting Mac's plan in the long run. Obviously March results are more important than the rivalry game. But it's ok to say that that game plan and really just lack of "want to" from the team Friday night wasn't acceptable.

[Jaysker12]

The sky would definitely not be falling but for Ashworth's injury. A team already thin at guard lost its most important one for probably the most difficult stretch of games we will have all year. Granted, not the most important stretch. But this team will really be tested in the next two weeks.

[Alphawalt]

People need to clam down. This was 1 bad loss to a team that's built to give us problems. Everyone's acting like we wiffed so bad in the portal by not getting 2 guys as good as Trey and Baylor. There weren't 2 guys available in the portal that could replace them, baylor was a freaking All-American. It will take some time to gel but Macs whole strategy the last few years is to play our best ball in March. We have enough opportunities this season to lose some games and still make the tournament. The sky is not falling, Mac will get it figured out.

Not discounting Mac's plan in the long run. Obviously March results are more important than the rivalry game. But it's ok to say that that game plan and really just lack of "want to" from the team Friday night wasn't acceptable.

Interesting facts noted by ESPN today on the debacle v. Huskers:

(CU had) the second-fewest 2-point attempts in a game by a Big East team over the past 25 seasons (West Virginia had 7 in 2007 against Villanova) and the fewest by a Division I team this season.

Needless to say, 10 two point shots is unacceptable, especially having Kalk to feed the ball to.

[CUGrads03]

People need to clam down. This was 1 bad loss to a team that's built to give us problems. Everyone's acting like we wiffed so bad in the portal by not getting 2 guys as good as Trey and Baylor. There weren't 2 guys available in the portal that could replace them, baylor was a freaking All-American. It will take some time to gel but Macs whole strategy the last few years is to play our best ball in March. We have enough opportunities this season to lose some games and still make the tournament. The sky is not falling, Mac will get it figured out.

Not discounting Mac's plan in the long run. Obviously March results are more important than the rivalry game. But it's ok to say that that game plan and really just lack of "want to" from the team Friday night wasn't acceptable.

+1

The good news is we are a team and fan base with longer term/more important things to look forward to. Agree there. But the same can be true that that game was atrocious on many many levels. We had some people over who aren’t regular ball fans and even they were like, “Is the whole Jays team sick this time?”

Sucked because of who it was against, but sucked more just because it was and is.

A buddy of mine talked to Mac after the game and tape viewing. Apparently he said, “Everything we said not to do, we did. Even when we’d say it again, they’d do it again.”

Onward and (hopefully and presumably) upward!